The UFO Blog

Archive for April, 2009

What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you’ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: check out BuddyPress.

BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as easy for anyone to create a social network as it is to create a blog today. There’s been an explosion of social activity on the web, it’s probably the most important trend of the past few years, but there’s been a dearth of Open Source tools that enable the social web.

In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you’ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.

I don’t think BuddyPress will be something you use instead of your existing social networks, I mean all your friends are already on Myspace, but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use. Maybe even someday you’ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks.

This is just a 1.0 release and it’s not for everybody yet, for example it currently requires using MU which is a bit trickier to get set up than regular WordPress, but regardless I’d recommend diving into the community at BuddyPress.org, which is great example of the software in action.

Here’s Andy’s official announcement post.

The poll is closed, the votes are counted, and the results are interesting. The table below shows the actual breakdown of the poll votes, of which there were 2,651. As you can see, there were four main contenders: Dean J. Robinson’s Fluency-based submissions (two variations), the existing 2.7 interface, and Matt Thomas’s comp (MT), which exists somewhere between them in terms of style. Note: GB was a late entry, and was posted after over 900 votes had already been collected.

As several people have rightly pointed out, the Fluency-style designs not only took the top spot, but in combination added up to a higher percentage than any other. We’re not focusing solely on that statistic, though, because had other designers submitted multiple versions, the numbers might have looked different. What was most interesting for me was checking in on the votes over the course of the two days the poll was open. The top three (Fluency-dark, Current 2.7, MT) kept beating each other out for the #1 spot as they cycled back and forth through the top three slots, and had the poll closed on time (left it open a little longer in case anyone translated the time zone incorrectly), the order would have been a bit different.

What’s more interesting to me is the overall style that seems to be preferred among voters, as Matt’s comp has some stylistic similarities to Dean’s (see image at left). It also would be interesting to know how many of the votes for the current 2.7 interface were based on thinking it looked the best vs. how many were votes against changing the interface at all so soon after the 2.7 redesign. If you want to comment on what you liked best and/or least about any of the designs, this thread is a good place.

So what happens now? However we look at it, the Fluency-style designs clearly have a lot of fans. Then again, so do the designs of Matt Thomas (he’s behind the current style of 2.7, remember, in addition to the comp labeled MT). To give the interface the attention it is due, and to take seriously some of the interface feedback around usability and accessibility, we’re going to leave the looks alone for 2.8. It’s our guess that a revised style will make into 2.9 early in the development cycle to allow us plenty of time for user testing and revision. How close it winds up being to the comps submitted in this design tweaks challenge will depend, but in the meantime:

Congratulations, Dean J. Robinson, on winning the vote!

Comps for the header/nav design tweaks are in, and the results are mixed. Some people just moved a few things around, while others proposed a new style altogether. We won’t make any major changes to style in 2.8, but if the vote leans toward a submission that proposes it, we’ll do some user testing and make a decision for early 2.9 (which, now that we think of it, is probably the right thing to do anyway. )

Below are the links to the screenshots that were submitted. Please review each one (I’d open them all in tabs so I could look back and forth while they are all large size, because the voting poll just uses thumbnails), then choose the one you think looks the best/is the most usable.

This poll was supposed to close at 8pm NY time on Tuesday (today), but we’re going to leave it open for an extra day. The voting poll will now be closed at 8pm NY time on Wednesday (that’s 2am Thursday, UTC). If you want to discuss the entries’ pros/cons, this thread would be a good place.

Current: The existing interface, for reference

KM: Current nav, header elements moved

AN: Current nav, file folder style header

KD: Current nav, modified header style

JJ: Swap blog title and favorites menu

DR1: Fluency style, dark

DR2: Fluency style, medium

DR3: Fluency style, light

IK: Nav layered over dark background

GB: Modified nav/header intersection

MT: Modified nav and header

Results will be posted the day after the polls close.

ACT I

Jane: It is a thorn in my side that the blog name header is above the “dashboard” nav section in the admin, since in MU installations and with plugins (like stats), things in the Dashboard section span multiple blogs. Makes more sense for the header to head only the per-blog content area.

Mark: I agree about the header. “This is the menu, this is the content.”

All: Yep.

Five minutes later…

Mark: What do you guys this of this quick mockup I just did, playing with the admin header?

Jane: I like it that the nav is not under the header. Might need some styling help. I was also thinking maybe the favorites menu should drop down into the white h2 area by screen options/help tabs.

Ryan: Menu color to the top with blog title pushed over and favorites next to screen options sounds quite nice.

Jane: I’ll ask Matt Thomas if he could style it [ed. note: Matt Thomas created the visual style for 2.7], and we can see what people think, maybe post on wpdevel for feedback.

Ryan: If it’s quick, maybe we could even get it into 2.8.

ACT II

Matt T: Here are some comps based on what you told me.

Jane: Cool, but where are Screen Options and Help tabs?

Matt T: Still working on that.

Jane: Hm. Wonder if there’s time to open this up to community designers? I know we’re in freeze, and it’s no notice, but you didn’t get any notice either when we dropped this styling request on your lap a few hours ago. That’s the way open software development works: sometimes the best ideas come at the last minute!

Matt T: I’m all for letting the community take a stab at it. Especially if they come up with something brilliant to do with the Screen Options and Help tabs.

Jane: I’ll ask Ryan about release date and see if there’s time. I know they wanted your style recommendations today.

Act III

Ryan: Tuesday is probably doable, no later than that for final delivery of style and any gradient graphics, etc.

Jane: Awesome! People will hate me for the short notice after the has-patch marathon, but since it’s a small project and over the weekend, and wasn’t even something anyone was planning until a few hours ago, I’m *really hoping* people will take this for what it is, an attempt to give more people input into an upcoming visual change in the interface, even if it’s not a huge one.

Ryan: Would have the benefit of warning people that header and menu will be changed a bit.

Jane: And we can have a vote. If I can get all the materials together and post in the morning, that would give 2 days of design time for submissions on Monday, and if we do a day of voting Tuesday, that’s 3 days notice for the vote. I’ll make sure to post to all the lists, etc.

Ryan: Will we announce with comps from Matt T as examples of what we’re thinking?

Jane: I’ll write up the UX reasons for considering the change, and Matt T can provide some style guidelines and his original comps so no one will have to waste time mocking up the basic screen layout.

Ryan: That would help set the scope. We just want tweaks here and there, given the timing.

Jane: Woot!

On Your Mark, Get Set…
Okay, so here’s the deal. Modifying the nav/header to be a little nicer is was a last-minute design idea, and if it can’t be worked out in the time we have left before 2.8 (which is very little), we’ll just wait until 2.9 to work on it. But! If someone comes up with something the community really likes and it doesn’t break any of the design guidelines for the rest of WordPress, we could sneak it in.

UX and design guidelines for this mini-project are posted here (so as not to clog up anyone’s feed reader with big graphics). Read through the UX stuff, check out the comps Matt Thomas mocked up last night (with absolutely no notice, for the record). Use the .psd as your base, and when it’s time to submit your ideas, make a .jpg or .png and post a link to it in the comments on this post. (Note: Only comments containing a link to a design submission using this format will be approved. For general discussion about this design challenge or any of the submissions, please head into the #wordpress-dev IRC channel.)

Submit the link to your comps by 1am Tuesday, April 28 UTC (7pm Monday, April 27, New York time). If you have questions or want early feedback, we’ll be in and out of the #wordpress-dev IRC channel between now and then.

Once we’ve received the submissions, we’ll post a voting survey (much simpler than the icon survey; this one will be more of poll, just choose the one you like best) as soon as possible, and will post the link to it here as soon as it’s online. We’ll only keep voting open for one day because of the 2.8 deadline, so put it on your calendar if you think you’ll forget. Voting will close at 2am Wednesday, April 29 UTC (8pm Tuesday, April 28, New York time). Results will be announced the following day.

Go!

* Chats above are a conglomeration of actual chats.

Reminder: Only comments containing a link to a design submission will be published here. All other comments will be deleted.

If you want to leave a public comment about this contest, the design, etc., I’ve created a thread in the forums that you can use. Please discuss these things there. If you leave a regular comment here on this blog, no one will be able to reply to you, because only actual links to design submissions will be posted in the comments here.

The retired astronaut Edgar Mitchell who was the last man to walk on the moon, has created quite a stir by publicly prcolaiming that UFOs are real and that we are not alone in the universe. This has received wide coverage in the media - including the following stories on CNN and Livescience to name just a few.

The coverage in Livescience and elsewhere of course set off a heated debate - as it always does - among debunkers, skeptics, believers and self-confessed alien abductees, among others. I do not proclaim to be an authority on UFOs, although I will say that I am keenly interested in this phenomenon and have possibly read more books, articles and websites on this subject than I can remember - all in the interests of learning what is really going on. The important point I want to make in this post is not whether one believes or does not believe in UFOs - but how we form an opinion or come to have this belief. I have learnt that most of us believe in things that continue to reinforce our current world view and we unconsciously - or sometimes conscisouly filter out stuff that violates this world view. This is just human nature - and not even the people whose profession calls for objectivity: scientists, media reporters, et al - are immune to this.

So for the skeptics and debunkers of the UFO phenomenon, I have just one question : How many of you have actually done any research on this subject, before making up your mind about UFOs ? How many of you have actually heard the eyewitness testimony under oath of over 400 former Government officials, Pentagon & NASA, FAA employees, former chief of the FAA, pilots and police officers? Not to mention the over thousand of unexplained cases of UFOs since the fifties ? In fact for someone willing to spend the time there is overwhelming evidence in favor of what Edgar Mitchell is stating. Just one of the hundreds of thousands of reported cases has to be true for the UFO hypothesis to be true - while the debunkers have to disprove every one of the millions of cases. Do not debunk something and call people insane for something that violates your current world view. You may remember someone else who was persecuted for violating the prevailing world view - and in that case as well, the other side refused to look at the evidence : Galileo when he was persecuted by the Church. Famously, Galileo pleaded with the Pope to just look through his telescope and see for himself but the Pope refused to.

For those of you who want to listen to some of the eyewitness testimony on UFOs from top military and government officials see this video from the disclosureproject project :
Also, here is another great website with tons of scientific background, possible reasons for UFO secrecy : Spend time and read up on the stuff - this is what Edgar Mitchell said in the conference and you will be amazed at what you find. In my experience, the true skeptics take time to examine the evidence, not make up their minds before debunking something - no matter how outrageous and impossible it may sound. Remember the famous quote (I think by Einstein): “Reality is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine. ”

Let us put things in perspective here : The harsh truth is that no matter how advanced 21st century mankind thinks it is - it is nothing more than a very, very primitive tribe in a cosmos that is over 15 billion years old. Our most advanced theories of reality - quantum physics and relativity - are less than a hundred years old. Scientists who assumed they had figured out most of the secrets of the cosmos were rudely shocked to learn just over a decade ago that more than 70% of the matter in the universe is unknown and dark. No one has yet figured out what the heck dark matter and dark energy is. So when the same scientists debunk the existence of phenomena that topples their current world view they should remember they do not always had a monopoly on knowing everything. Imagine what a civilization that is just 10,000 years ahead of us may be capable of.

Underground Freak Out San Diego Reader, CA This week's set to see will set your inner hippie free, when Ginsu guitarist Makoto Kawabata's Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso UFO (Underground Freak Out) launch from Cape Casbah Tuesday night. The Temple's “extreme trip music” relaxes with …

Counter Intelligence: Doc Claims He Can Clone Humans NBC Washington, DC The astro, Edgar Mitchell, was part of the Apollo 14 moon mission in 1971 and grew up in the geographyic epicenter of UFO conspiracy theories: Roswell, New Mexico. "We're not alone," the 78-year old told an annual conference of UFO enthusiasts. …

UFODigest

The Human Cost of National Security Act of 1947 Secrecy UFODigest, Canada by Niara Isley On March 28th this past month I did something that was a big deal for me, I spoke publicly at the Aztec UFO Symposium about my extraterrestrial-related experiences, both my childhood through adulthood abductions/contacts and my more …

Star does Siriusly good UFO impression in sky above Tri-Cities Seattle Times, United States By Drew Fosterine KENNEWICK — The National UFO Reporting Center has received reports from across the nation — all of them describing a bright, colorful, moving object in the Monday night sky. The object, at the time unidentified, caught the eye of ...

Man tells police he sighted UFO at James Madison Park Capital Times, Wisconsin A 22-year-old downtown resident told Madison Police he spotted a mysterious unidentified flying object Thursday, April 16 at James Madison Park. He said he was in James Madison Park, 314 E. Gorham St., at around 7 pm, when he saw a strange object in ...